


Case 25. Above Love

by belmione



Category: Princess Principal (Anime)
Genre: F/F, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-17
Updated: 2017-11-17
Packaged: 2019-02-03 11:10:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12747147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belmione/pseuds/belmione
Summary: "It’s hard to remember the loss of Casablanca, the disappearance of everything she planned, when she’s flying out of the window with her, bleeding but alive, the pleasant weight of her in her arms. With the way her arm curls around her shoulders, the way she presses her cheek just there over her her heart, the warmth of her breath in the misty chill of London snow as she tells her she’s going to break down the walls of her heart and Ange thinks maybe she really does love her too."This is a look at Ange’s figuring out/coming to terms with the ways she loves Charlotte, and a little bit about their time in Casablanca.





	Case 25. Above Love

“So. What’s your story?”

Dorothy grins at her, the flush from one too many shots of whiskey across her cheeks, the smell on her breath, mingling with her perfume. A sweet smell in its way, even if it’s  one that brings a moment of unease with it.

Ange doesn’t have to wonder what she means.  It’s far from the first time she’s asked. By now it’s something of a friendly inside joke, but Ange’s never given her a straight answer.

They all have a reason they do it.  There are no spies with unyielding loyalty enough that the doing of the job itself is their only motivation. Control knows this well enough, which is why it’s important never to actually let anyone know why you’re here.

For some it’s access.  To the highest security, most private places. For some it’s a thrill. For some it’s a distraction. For some, revenge. Some get pulled in unwittingly, too young or stupid to know better, and have to survive.

For some it’s someone.

They all also have their own tactic too. This is Dorothy’s.  A kind of stealth that comes from being in the open.  A disarming of sorts. Dorothy hides in plain sight. This apparent friendliness and almost charming way she drinks just a hair too much is enough for most.

For those that aren’t swayed, there’s always that she’s beautiful.  The way she can look up through her eyelashes and pull her arms close  in a way that accentuates her breasts is a magic all its own that Ange could never hope to pull off.  If Ange were a weaker woman, it would work on her, this little shimmy as she pulls her dress as low as she can without it being outright indecent, the curve of her chest straining a little against the confines of her dress.

Unfortunately for her, it won’t work on Ange. She’s not that stupid, even if she appreciates getting to watch the effort.

“You’ve asked before and you expect a different answer now?”

“Ah, I just thought we were better friends now. Enough for you to quit that shit about the Black Lizard Planet, but evidently not.”

“And if I did, could I expect you to be forthcoming in return?”

Dorothy smiles and knocks back the rest of what’s in her glass.

It’s not so much that they can’t be honest with each other because of potential conflicts from Control. There’s always an understanding that their loyalty to Control is in flux, in danger of disappearing at any moment.

It’s that they’re all here for a reason outside Control. And what if those interests conflict? It’s better to keep the things most important to you close so no one can misuse them. Someone who’s friendly now can turn quickly if their own interests are jeopardized. 

Sometimes your hand is tipped for you, of course.  A mission goes off track and puts you face to face with whatever or whomever you’re after.

It happens to all of them, in turn.

Sometimes it’s how you meet them. It’s this way with Chise. The nearly imperceptible stiffness in her shoulders when Jubei’s name is mentioned and they know. This is it for her, whoever she is.  It’s a little easier to trust her after, knowing there’s not something she’s after passionately enough for her to be dangerous to them. She’s probably in it for intel now, whether it’s the damning sort they’re not sure. But that visceral thing is gone for her, for now at least.  

Beatrice’s reasons are close to Ange’s although misguided in a way that’s cute, foolish, and nonetheless admirable all at the same time. She has little to no understanding of what she’s gotten herself into. But it’s just so painfully obvious she doesn’t care, may even understand how tenuous a line her life is on.  She knows enough to know how much she doesn’t know. All she has is how much she thinks she loves her princess, even after she starts to understand that she’s not who Beatrice thought she was.  She’ll do what she has to to protect her and Ange can’t help but respect it, this blind devotion.

The day she finds Dorothy on the plush red sofa, her legs drawn up, face buried in her knees and Beatrice, poorly hiding the bottle out of Dorothy’s reach.  Dorothy could get it if she wanted to. But she’s chosen instead to let Beatrice sit next to her, head tipped to rest on her shoulder and a hand laced in hers.  For her it hasn’t been what she’s looking for but what she doesn’t want to find. Dorothy’s met whatever she’s running from. Ange has an idea what it is but doesn’t press the issue.

She isn’t sure if the others understand yet that her reason for it all is right here, smiling mildly at them, an expression that probably took her years of practice to perfect.

She doesn’t think they do. If anyone has an inkling it’s Dorothy.  At most they just think she has a soft spot for her, not that they’d be wrong, but she keeps from them the true enormity of it.

The strength it took. Still takes.

The fact that the only thing she’s had for the ten years since she lost her is endless dreams of what it’ll be like to see her again.  Dreams of crossing the wall because reality couldn’t get her there.

Right after she lost her, it was more planning than daydreaming. She foolishly tried to get across the wall more than once and she was far from the only one. Stories like hers, people separated from one another just by going about their days, by being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The first time she tried to just explain that she needed to be on the other side. They laughed at her, shooing her away and for good reason. In those clothes she didn’t look like she belonged in the Kingdom.

She tried to sneak a few times, all with disastrous effect. She’d never had to hide or run in her life up to that point.  The kind of finesse she’d been taught was for ballrooms and boardrooms, not this.

What a heartbreaking, sinking shame it is they couldn’t have taught each other something, if they’d known this was how it would end.

She knows now she was very lucky that the only things she suffered for trying to sneak across were blows, blessedly underestimated because of her age. They could’ve arrested her. They could’ve killed her.

It wasn’t as if she had any real desire to go back to the castle.  Her parents had been killed. And even if they hadn’t, she always found the place stifling.

Of course there were superficial things she missed. Real shelter. Fires and clothes that were warm enough. Not worrying where food was coming from and if it would be edible.

Ange had had no idea before crossing the wall that kind of piercing hunger and cold existed.  It’s a different sort of existence. A simple one, away from politics and complicated notions of being, but brutal in its simplicity.  Try to eat. Try to stay warm. Try to stay alive. Over and over.

But at least it came with anonymity, a horrifying and also freeing apathy at the hands of everyone else. No one knew who she was or if she was alright and no one cared.

She knew first hand that life as the princess was one under a constant surveilling eye.  A myriad of people watching your every move, endless classes and criticism, and no effort ever good enough.  Barely an instant by yourself, not even to dress or bathe, only alone in the dead of night to sleep, and there was always a guard outside the door.

There were creature comforts, but Ange knows they were no true comfort to the new Charlotte. As if she’d be able to even enjoy it, as if she’d be able to eat under pressure like that, as if she’d be able to enjoy warm fires, sweating under watchful eyes.

Soon after, around the time she entered the orphanage, they became more like dreams than intent. Because she knew she had to get across the wall but knew how impossible that would be.

She imagined the war ending abruptly, everyone coming back to each other from each side.  Imagined her waiting there on the other side, running to her and putting her in her arms.

She imagined Ange, or maybe it was Charlotte now, escaping in a fantastic feat of stealth and crossing to come find her in the crowded orphanage to rescue her.

She imagined what it might be like if she could fly over the wall and rescue her in turn. Glide over at night and whisk her away and never come back.

Sometimes kids disappeared from the orphanage.  You couldn’t ask about it. Staff would tell you they found homes even though no one ever came here to take children home. The only people who could afford another mouth to feed were in the Kingdom. The only ones interested on this side of the wall were unsavory characters the staff didn’t trust enough. Not that the place was terribly savory in itself, but better than the street.

Ange didn’t usually care about the kids that were taken. She made few attachments, too focused on how to get over the wall to make friends.

There was a pang the day Dorothy, the girl who showed her around when she got here, disappeared without a trace. Something about that jarred Ange. Maybe just a reminder that nothing is sacred, nothing safe.

It was around this time that dreams became plans again.

She couldn’t sneak in while the wall was guarded, that’s for certain. But if she could make a distraction, she could be small enough to get through.

They found them. Her little scribbled notes about how she might do it. Where to get flammables from the cupboards in the orphanage, what times the staff were lax or dozing.  How staging something might draw guards away from the gates long enough for her to slip through.  Or even how the smoke might hide her, if she could make enough of it.  

She remembers it well, being awakened and yanked out of bed in the middle of the night, marched down the stairs into the cellar.  Shivering at the chill. Asking what was going on with nothing but a stiff, waxen look from the staff.

She was plunked in a chair across from a woman with short, brown hair.  She looked mildly bored, flipping through papers on a small table in front of her.

“So. You have a particular interest in getting over the wall. Miss…who is it? They don’t tell me names.”

“Ange.  Ange LeCarre,” she told her.  It was only just starting to feel normal to say that instead of Charlotte. “I….it wasn’t serious, please understand.”  
  
“Seems pretty serious to me.  Plans to make explosives aren’t casual as far as I’m concerned, Miss LeCarre.”

Ange couldn’t say anything in response.  If they were going to kill her they were going to kill her.  And trying to sneak over the wall was about as serious an offence anyone could be saddled with.  

“It’s an awful plan, it would never work.  But it’s a plan.  And a serious one, I have to commend you for that.”

Commend?

“I’d really like it if you got to the point.”

She wasn’t always so direct, but it was cold and she was sure she was going to be imprisoned anyway, so she didn’t see much use pretending.  

The lady actually laughed a little.

“You’re not easily intimidated, I see.  Good.  I’ll get to the point then.  You have two choices.  One, you consider very seriously an offer I have for you.   You have some skills the government of the Commonwealth could really use.  You can go to school to hone those skills.”

“And if I refuse?”  
  
“I report this and you either go to prison or the gallows.  Depends on how lenient the judge is feeling that day and how much Royalist sentiment he feels you display.”

“What kind of school?”

“One that could, should you apply yourself and excel, get you over the wall like you want.  Although it will take a lot of skill to be chosen for such an operation, so I wouldn’t consider this opportunity lightly.  If you don’t mean to take it seriously, it would be faster for you to go straight to the gallows.”  
  
“Meaning if I don’t do it right, you’ll kill me anyway?”

“I’m glad we understand each other.”

“I can really get across the wall?  I know I have to be good at…whatever it is.”

“You can get across the wall.  And what it is is a branch of the Commonwealth’s Intelligence Agency called the National Clandestine Service.   You’ll be training to collect foreign intelligence, mostly regarding the Kingdom, through covert action.  Of course, there’s no guarantee you’ll get that far and no guarantee that whatever you want to do so badly once you’re on the other side will be allowed or even possible depending on the mission.”

“So, spies?  I’ll be training to be a spy?  I’ll be gathering intelligence from the Kingdom?”

“You pick things up quickly, Miss LeCarre.”

“I won’t be an assassin, though, right?”

“That’s not our objective and a last resort, although not unheard of if an operation goes wrong.  But sometimes when information is compromised, it’s the only way to ensure it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. It’s a possibility you would have to understand and be willing to execute if such a situation arose.”

“How much time do I have to decide?”  
  
“I’m afraid you don’t have the luxury of waiting to give me an answer.”

If she’d never met her, she would’ve picked the gallows. That was how she met her in the first place. She remembers it, an utter crushing listlessness she wanted to stop more than anything. Wanting to embrace that choice.

It was something of a shock when she realized, shivering in the basement of the orphanage, that she didn’t want that anymore.

Because what would come of Charlotte if Ange wasn’t there? Who would try to save her? Who would know to? Who would know what she’d been struggling against? Even if she never found her, who else would be alive to know?

“I’ll do it.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

She was transported there that very night.  She had to admit she was glad to see Dorothy, even if she never told her so. It was nice to have one person she knew in a sea of strange faces and even stranger information.  

It wasn’t long before people called her a prodigy. She was never a prodigy. What she was was a girl who had no other option but to succeed. There was no point to doing it otherwise. Not for her own life, but for Charlotte’s. It was either success or both of their heads.

When she nearly drowned during a particularly strenuous drill, she thought of her.  Of how the freezing water threatening to overwhelm her couldn’t be as horrible as the cold, merciless stare of a politician who wants her dead and what it would be like to be able to rescue her from it.

When they taught her not to crack during an interrogation, and gave her tastes of the things she’d have to withstand, she was the only one in the class who didn’t crack on the first try.  Instead, she thought of her and how it couldn’t be as horrible as an interrogation that lasts years, every minute of every day.  How beautiful it would be to end that for her, take her somewhere she’d be able to live and be.

The first time she had to kill someone, she didn’t throw up like Dorothy did.  She thought of her, and what it must be like for Charlotte to hear Kingdom politicians plot the death of everyone like her and expect her to agree and what it would be like to live far away from it all.

She accepted everything, meagre penance for the hell she put Charlotte through.

The day they tell her they’re actually going to send her over the wall, she uses everything she’s saved and buys a little house in Casablanca, far enough away from Europe and easy enough to get to.  

It takes a year to actually come face to face with her even after that. Even after getting over the wall, the missions don’t put her in contact with her.

She can barely believe it when they tell her she’ll be going undercover at Queen’s Mayfair School to try and take the Princess’s place.

She never thought they’d put her in such direct contact with her. She never thought they’d put her face to face with her. But they’ve caught on to what both of them have known since they were small. They’re uncannily alike.

It’s eerie seeing her again. She almost wonders if it’s not her, but of course there’s no one else it could be. What if she doesn’t remember her? Or doesn’t want anything to do with her?

She tests the waters.

_I don’t suppose we could be friends?_

_I’m a rather dull person.  I don’t think you would enjoy my friendship._

So it really is her. Ange can’t right now, but she wants to grin hearing it. This affirmation that she’s wanted to see her again as badly as Ange has. That she remembers as vividly. That she’s been waiting too.

_No, I would._

_Why do you say so?_

It looks almost as if she wants to mouth the words along with her.  She looks at Ange, tentative, breath held.

_Because we’re complete opposites._

There’s not a lot of time that night to speak to her at length, although she tries to explain as best she can in a note. 

But the next day there’s nothing hampering her anymore. She’s finally found her. They can leave today if they need to. They should leave today. They should leave as soon as they can.

She tells her about Casablanca on the rooftop of their school and she knows it’s finally here, the moment they get to leave this place behind.

It all grinds to a halt.

Charlotte resolutely tells her she can’t run, has to stay, to make sure that others don’t suffer the same way, they have.  Even if it means her own suffering.  Even if it means she’ll never get to enjoy what comes of her work and effort.  

Ange realizes here that in pretending, she’s become a real princess. As real a princess as one could possibly be.  Effortlessly perfect, as able to diffuse a dangerous political squabbles and switch between nine languages as dance a perfect waltz or play through a piano concerto with not a note out of line.

And then there’s the sinking realization that Ange has, in turn, become a real spy. Until now it was a means to an end. An elaborate one, a difficult one, but she would’ve done anything to get across the wall and this was the best way she found.

She’s not sure how she thought this wasn’t really real, somehow. How she thought she’d been pretending her way through.  As if the the way she knows how to hold a revolver and hit her mark every time, the way she knows how to build real explosives now and disarm them too, knows when a witness can be left to live and when they have to die, knows pain searing enough not to crack under an interrogation were all just details. Unimportant and insignificant compared to getting to her.

But it’s a spy, not royalty, that would run.  Ange supposes if she’d been raised as Charlotte, raised how she was meant to be, she might want to stay.  She remembers a brief flash of ambition like that, a drive to change things, make things better.  

Being a spy has taught her that there is no loyalty except to yourself and whatever it is you want, whatever it is you can’t live without. Somewhere along the way she’s lost her ideals, if she ever had them to begin with.  She doesn’t care about this damned city or anyone in it anymore save the girl in front of her. She’d rather run, take back her life from this place. It’s taken enough from both of them and it wasn’t deserving of it. She’d rather say to hell with everyone and everything else because she finally found her and why do it when they could leave now, live a happy and quiet life now?

She knows even as she nods and acquiesces that if they don’t go now, they may lose this chance to be together without entanglements.  But she feels as if she can’t push her, not when it’s her fault she’s standing here, forced into the expensive uniform of the most prestigious academy in the country, even if she’s resplendent in it.

And she is resplendent, in everything.

Ange isn’t sure what she expected to find, seeing her again.  She’s imagined so endlessly what it’ll be like to see her again that she’s not sure how to cope now that it’s real.  It’s both too real and somehow something she can’t trust.   She knew this day would come eventually because she’d make sure it did and on the other hand part of her thought she’d never see her again.  Is she just dreaming?  Is this something she’ll wake up from?  It’s happened before.

Or, even if it is real, how in the world can it last?

She’s exactly the same girl Ange’s thought about every millisecond of every day since the wall took her from her and she’s also a complete stranger.

She remembers every plane of her face, every lash above those clear eyes.  But her face and limbs are leaner and more graceful because of course they are.  They’re not children anymore.  She’s a woman, a very young one like Ange, but a woman all the same.    

Ange would be lying to herself if she didn’t admit that she’s intimidated by how gracefully she’s grown into her role.  She doesn’t think she would’ve done half as well or shown quite the same devotion to the task.  She’d also be lying to herself if she didn’t admit that she finds her intimidatingly beautiful.

“You’re so different,” she breathes and it draws Ange out of her own thoughts, back to the rooftop and the gentle breeze here.  She smiles.

“I was thinking the same thing about you.”

“Really?”

“Yes.  I mean, not completely, you’re still you.  But I didn’t expect how different you’d be.”

“I know.  I almost expected to see you as you were when we were children.  As silly as that is.”

“I did too, I think.  At least a little.”

She smiles and walks forward to lean over the railing, taking Ange’s hand to come stand with her.  She doesn’t have the callouses she had as a child.  They’ve faded, and her hands have gotten soft, like a princess’s should be.  Ange almost doesn’t want to touch them.  Hers have grown rough now and she doesn’t want to hurt her.

“Your hair is short, I like it. It’s not what I expected but it suits you,” she grins and reaches up with dainty hands to run them through the short hair at the nape of her neck.  Ange can’t help but shiver.  

This is something that pulls her up short, in the days that follow. None of it is going the way she wanted it to or expected it to.

She had dreams of sweeping in and running with her to Casablanca to hide in plain sight among sandy beaches and the rhythmic hush of waves.

What does she do now that they’re still trapped in England and she has to keep up an act around her?  What does she do now that they’re finally together again, but they don’t get much time together, just the two of them?

She tries to articulate to herself why it frustrates her. Why does she want her to herself so badly?

She tells herself it’s the stress of them having to live a lie for so long. That naturally she wants not to pretend sometimes.

But Ange is good at determining if someone is telling a lie and there’s something about what she tells herself that unsettles like a lie.

Because it doesn’t explain the nervous way every nerve tingles when she touches her, even the lightest accidental brush of her skirt against hers will do it.

It doesn’t explain the flash of annoyance when she watches Beatrice brush her hair and get to be the one to bring her tea, and worse, when she returns these little gestures, combing her fingers through Beatrice’s hair to reassure her or putting a palm gently to her cheek.

It doesn’t explain how she wakes up, panting and disoriented from a dream, and she’s dreamt of kissing her.

Has this always been what they were moving towards? Or is this a detour of Ange’s own making?  And what if, after all this time and effort, Charlotte feels differently?

Ange would still love her, she knows that. She would let Charlotte love her in any way she wants, even one that hurts in that it’s at cross purposes with her own.

But should she even ask? What if she hated her for it? That’s the only thing in the world Ange is scared of. Death and pain and separation, she’s handled them all. But she can’t bear to think what it would be like if Charlotte hated her.

She says nothing.

She’s never thought that this unwavering devotion to her, this love, would take on a different tone than the one they’ve always known.  She’s always known she loved her, but never considered a love of this kind.  She wasn’t entirely sure it could exist, though she’s heard rumors. Spy training leaves one poorly equipped for love, that much is certain. She has no idea how much of any of this is normal, what she’s supposed to do with it.

She briefly wonders if she should ask someone, anyone.  But there are few to ask and even the ones she mostly trusts would mean tipping her hand.  And she’s learned never to tip your hand.    
  
That, and even if everyone in their team were perfectly trustworthy, the likelihood they’d be helpful is slim.

Beatrice would be hysterical.  She might even cry.  She’d certainly double down on her efforts to keep Ange well away from her beloved princess.  Dorothy would tease relentlessly and likely offer little to no real advice other than to shrug and tell her to go for it with no regard for repercussions.  Chise might not understand and even if she did, she’d likely deem the matter too personal to discuss at length.

Her dreaming about her, about running away with her, continues even as she’s right next to her. Dreaming of living with her away from it all, day in and day out. Of kissing her when she wakes in the morning.  Of sweet gasps in her ear and the way it might feel to have her cling to her.

And all of it stops when they slide a photo of her across a table.

Still and grey-white, as if she’s already dead.   

She’s smiling in it.

She tells them she’ll kill her.  Dorothy looks at her, incredulous, but she agrees to do it because she’s already dead, really.  All this time only for her to be taken away in an instant.

“I don’t want to kill her,” Dorothy tells her and Ange ignores it because it doesn’t matter what they want. Once Control has their eyes on her, it’s nearly impossible to change the course.

“We’re human beings first,” she keeps going, almost as if she’s pleading with her. For what? Does she want to see her grief? Does she want to see it pierce as icily as the wind tears down the narrow street they drive on?

What use is there indulging grief if it won’t help her anyway?  What’s the use in fighting for it all to come crashing down no matter what?

She’s not really ready to do it, just resigned that it’ll happen whether she does it or not.   The least she can do is have control of it, just make sure she’s the one who does it so she can make sure it’s kind. She tells Dorothy she’s not human. Because she’s not, not now that she’s lost her again, not now that she may be the one who has to do it. She could do it so she’d never know she was dying.  She could do it so they wouldn’t own her last breaths. She’d fall asleep in her arms and-

Dorothy’s fist nearly collides with her cheek, landing with a sickeningly forceful thud in the leather of the seat right by her ear. She looks like she wants to kill Ange, really kill her, face inches from her and jaw clenched so tight she can hear her teeth grinding. She’s not sure for a moment that she’s not going to try. Her eyes are watering she’s so angry.

Dorothy, with few exceptions, is usually calm to a fault. There aren’t many things she can’t laugh at or at least shrug off. Maybe it’s why she’s just on the knife’s edge of scaring Ange, staring her down with a force and a fury so white-hot it stuns her.

“Liar.”

The word crackles in the cold air between them.

Few things are clear here in the whistling snow, and few things separate good spies from great ones, but the one thing that’s true without a doubt is that Dorothy always remembers to be human when it counts.

She almost wishes Dorothy had actually punched her, it might clear this fog in her thoughts quicker, but this aching reminder that they love her and that that humanity shouldn’t be taken lightly is working all the same. It’s working the way a sound that startles you badly enough raises the hair on your neck, enlivens your nerves, makes you even breathe and see and think clearer, run faster.

Funny that she’s spent years trying to forget that she’s human in hopes it would make her strong enough to save her.  And here Dorothy is having to remind her of her inconvenient humanity just to get her to do something, anything. Just to remind her she doesn’t have to take the decision lying down.  To remind her the reason she did any of this in the first place.

Wasn’t the whole point just to get over the wall in the first place? Didn’t she know abandoning Control would happen all along, that they were an elaborate means to an end? Didn’t she know when she accepted 7’s offer years ago in the freezing basement of an orphanage that she’d betray them eventually after their use had run out?

She thanks whatever force of nature that Dorothy said her piece when she did. It’s not an hour later that she’s gone. No trace she existed left in her room.

There’s a flash of the same dreams she used to have, even as everyone leaves her.  She hasn’t spoken to Beatrice since Dorothy left. Dorothy, gone in the dead of night and Chise, abruptly and mysteriously reassigned.

It’s just her again, just her and dreams of rescuing her, whisking her off to Casablanca.  There’s no other way anymore. She either gets her there or she dies.  Ange assures herself it will happen this time, it will work, it will be alright.   Dreaming of a world where she can keep her alive and well and with her instead of this horror she’s living now.  Up all night, frantically making a diversion so she can get her out of here, Zelda’s telling her they’re going to do it tomorrow echoing in her.

And when they escape to passenger ship leaving for Casablanca, she thinks this reality is as good as a dream, running hand in hand with her like they used to do when they were children. It feels like they’re just playing again, playing tricks on the staff.

Ange should know by now that dreams are only that.

It’s how she how she got here, in the hold of this  ship without her.  How she got so close to making it out of here with her. How painful it is that the only thing that could’ve gone wrong was her refusal to leave with her.  

And it happened.  She didn’t go with her. And she hates her and she has every last reason to. Ange has single-handedly destroyed her life.  She’s always known that much.  But what she didn’t want to understand until now is that trying to run takes her away from making something from the shards.

She should’ve known. If she saves her life but erases everything she’s done to make it worth living, is that a life at all?  And she’s going to die before Ange gets a chance to apologize to her.

Why has she been thinking of all of this as a story that had hope of a pretty ending?

She doesn’t know where to go from here. Escaping with her has been all she’s worked towards since she lost her, all she’s thought about, all she’s dreamed about.

And she doesn’t want the same. She doesn’t even want to be anywhere near her and Ange should’ve understood that.  

She rifles through her purse just to remember she existed. The traces of her presence are already retreating, as if the universe is anticipating her loss.

It smells like her.  She can still see her hands opening and closing the little clasp.  There’s a bottle of perfume, a pair of gloves.

She finds something soft. Woolen. A hat.

Her hat, she realizes.

Ange hasn’t been able to place much sentiment in the things that belong to her.  She hasn’t even been able to keep her name, parts of her humanity even, so material things seemed minor. And anyway, a life on the street and then as a spy didn’t really lend itself to keeping up with things.

But this. This leaps across a decade and now she’s back in the room she lived in as a child. Setting it on her head, a finishing touch, both of them in matching outfits to run off and tease the staff.

It makes her wish she’d kept the little threadbare cap she traded for it.

It’s enough for her to set the hold on fire to get out.  It’s enough hope that she might love her too, in any way, for her to cling to.  

And in case she didn’t understand before, there’s the note written in her elegant hand.

_My turtledove, Run and live as Ange!_

Ange should know by now that dreams are only dreams but that reality has a way of being more painful and sometimes more beautiful too.

There’s a pang in her still that their clandestine escape was for naught. A melancholy tug that they won’t be able to be together without danger.  

But then, maybe Charlotte has a point.  There’s no guarantees that they would be safe even then.  And she’s lost her so many times and never felt a torture quite so horrible as that ache and she wouldn’t wish this kind of pain on anyone.

That and the question of whether it would really be an escape if it were one Charlotte resented.

It’s hard to remember the loss of Casablanca, the disappearance of everything she planned, when she’s flying out of the window with her, bleeding but alive, the pleasant weight of her in her arms. With the way her arm curls around her shoulders, the way she presses her cheek just there over her her heart, the warmth of her breath in the misty chill of London snow as she tells her she’s going to break down the walls of her heart and Ange thinks maybe she really does love her too.

When they fly over the wall together, she doesn’t tell her that she needn’t try so hard to get to her heart. She already has.

Ange thinks dreams also have an odd way of coming true, just not the way people usually imagine them, like a wish that manifests in unexpected ways.

Casablanca isn’t the same as she thought it would be. She has to admit she’s not very used to heat like this.  The sun can be piercing, but it’s nice in its way.  It’s no vacation, really, although they call it one. They’re here waiting on further instructions from Control, in a rare interim between missions. They expect activity on behalf of the Duke of Normandy in the area soon.

It’s crowded in the little house, all five of them crammed in a place meant for two or three. There’s little privacy to speak of and even less room to move.

But it’s also sweet, in its way.  It’s a little less terrifying, having so many people who so obviously care more about each other than some mission or other. Sweetly scary that they all know each other’s weaknesses now and guard them for one another.

It’s difficult sometimes.  Spending a decade simultaneously trying to forget your humanity at the same time you’re trying to rescue the only thing that grants you any at all is a difficult business.  It’s one she’s only just starting to understand, this interim between the way she thought things would go, the way they are now, and what to do with the fact that a decade’s worth of work is over, all things considered.

She got across the wall.  She got to Casablanca more or less.  Rescued Charlotte as best she could with what Charlotte was willing to allow.

What happens now is a sort of stasis, a paralysis about what to do next and how to cope with a new reality that isn’t of her making and isn’t of Charlotte’s either, but both of theirs.  What to do with this looming knowledge that things aren’t completely safe still and may never be.

And then there’s what to do with Charlotte herself.

She’s terrified of how blissful it is to be near her.  She hasn’t felt anything good since the day she lost her and it’s as if she’s looking past every happy feeling for the disaster hidden in its depths.  For a piece she missed that’ll be their undoing.  

“Why is everyone around me always so high-strung?  We’re living on the beach doing nothing but lazing about in the best weather one could hope for and drinking all day.  And Beatrice is still in fits over Charlotte, Chise’s stir crazy, and you won’t quit brooding and grumping about. And you wonder why I drink, anyone would surrounded by all that.”

Ange jumps.  It’s night, a half moon throwing light and shadow on the surface of the waves in turn.  Dorothy has joined her on the small porch, bottle in hand.  At least she has a glass tonight.  Sometimes she forgoes it altogether.

“See?  You’re a mess.  Not that you weren’t always, but you’re worse than normal lately.”

“I’m not brooding.”

“Surrounded by brooding, pathological liars.   You’re exhausting.”

“Well if it’s that taxing for you, you don’t have to help.”

“Ah, but I’m also as much nosy as I am a borderline alcoholic.”  
  
“Borderline?”

“Touche.”

“Are you here to ask me what my story is or whatever?”

“No. There are some holes I don’t know, of course, but I think I get the gist of your story by now.  I actually think you’re having more trouble understanding what it is now than I am.”

“I’d like it if you got to the point.”

“My point is I’m worried that you’re wasting an opportunity you worked hard for and suffered for. You’re so on edge you’ve got a Princess on your hands who swears you hate her or at least are mad at her-”

“What?! What did she say? What-”

“Nothing. But it’s not hard to figure out. I’d wonder if you were mad at me if you were that quiet around me. And if I cared, of course.”

Ange sighs, rubs her eyes furiously.

“I don’t hate her I’m just stressed.  Did I mess up anything, what’s going to happen when we have to go back? Is she safe?  What if I missed something?”

“Ange,” Dorothy’s tone sobers. “You’re going to have to learn something I had to learn. Or one that I’m trying to, anyway. And that something is that a lot fewer things than you think are your fault.  And just as few are in your control.”

“I know that.”

“Yeah, sure you do, just like I know it intellectually but damn if I don’t wonder if I could’ve done something different.  My advice to you is to try to forget everything except what’s right here right now. You know as well as any one of us how little time we have.  This could be all you have. And if it is, there’s probably not much you can do to change it.”

“But what if there is?”

“I’ll be the first person telling you to move your ass and do something.  I’m telling you to stop worrying about what you should be doing or what all of this means and enjoy yourself while you can.  There’s no point to having done any of it if you’re not going to try and have fun. What that means for you, of course, is up to you,” she winks and Ange flushes.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Of course you don’t, just like you’re an alien and not as English as me.”

“Isn’t your family Scottish?”

“Alright, if you don’t want my help, you can help yourself, Miss Black Lizard.”

She picks up her bottle and turns to go inside.

Ange thinks that’s the end of Dorothy’s meddling until she threads an arm around Beatrice’s waist and hoists her up with no problem.

“D-Dorothy?”

“You’re leaving with me for a few hours. And Chise.”

“Is something wrong?” Chise asks soberly from where she’s been sharpening a knife.

“Yes,” she tells her simply. “Oh, you don’t need weapons.”

Chise pauses halfway through slinging a scabbard across her back and narrows her eyes.

“What do you mean? Where are we going?”

“There’s something of a fair going on in town and it’d be heresy if we missed it.”

“Heresy?” Chise asks, confused.

“A crime. Usually of a religious sort.  Dorothy’s exaggerating,” Charlotte explains, placid. “Although I’ve never been to anything like a fair, can I join you?” she asks, bright-eyed and hopeful. It tugs at Ange, this desperation to experience things she’s been denied, to be included, to revel in having friends to talk to and be with.

“I think it would be better if you sat this one out, Princess, at least for tonight. If we give it the all-clear, Ange can take you tomorrow. For tonight, you’ll stay here with Ange. Alone.”

Ange flushes as Dorothy deliberately hints at Charlotte with as little subtlety as she can possibly muster.  She’ll get her back for that one.

“Oh, yes, that sounds just as fun.”

“Princess!”

Ange and Beatrice protest at the same time.

“I want to stay with Princess,” Beatrice implores from the confines of Dorothy’s arm, arms and legs still dangling pitifully.

“I know you do but I need you with me for tonight’s mission.”

“You just said it wasn’t dangerous!”

“It’s no less of a mission.”

“Beatrice, it’s alright, I promise we’ll have tea just the two of us tomorrow afternoon and you can tell me all about it then,” Charlotte tells her and Beatrice looks unhappy, but relents all the same.  Chise doesn’t appear to fully understand why she’s being asked to attend, but her overall boredom gets the better of her.  That and the fact that she doesn’t want anything more to do with whatever business Dorothy has decided that Ange and Charlotte have here in the house.  She follows Dorothy without a word, although she gives them all a searching look in turn.

“So what did you say to Dorothy that made her shoo everyone but you away from me?” she smiles, soft and only a little knowing a few minutes after everyone has left.

“I’m s-sorry. I didn’t actually say anything, she just-”

“It’s alright, don’t worry. I’m not upset, I’m just making conversation, Ange.  You know I’m always happy to get a rare moment alone with you.  They’ve been even rarer than usual here, though.”

“There’s a lot of people in the house.”

“That’s true.  But I also wonder if something isn’t also bothering you.  You’ve always been quiet but I don’t know if we’ve really had a conversation since we left London.”

“I’m so sorry, I-”

“I’m not upset with you. If anything, I wonder if I might’ve done you a disservice.”

“What?! How?!”

How in the world she could possibly feel she’s done Ange a disservice she isn’t sure.

“I have to be honest with you that I meant what I said about wanting to become queen. And if I got the chance to do it all over again, I would make the same decisions. But I don’t know if I ever thanked you for everything you did to try and help me, even if I didn’t accept it in the end. You arranged a way for me to escape and even came to find me after I didn’t go with you and got myself in trouble doing it.”

“But-”

“It’s sweet of you to protest, but it’s true. And now we’re here in this place you arranged for us to escape to and it’s not at all what you wanted.  Even looking at it, thinking about how difficult it must’ve been for you to arrange all of this. I’m afraid I’ve ignored your efforts. I’m afraid I haven’t treated you very well-”

“No! You were right to be upset with me, I didn’t listen to you and of course you wouldn’t want to drop everything after years of learning it and-”

She smiles sadly and stands, reaching up to toy with the end of the braid tied at the back of her head.

“You’re not just a little upset this didn’t turn out like you planned?”

“Well, yes, of course I am, but not because of you. More because I wish you were safer. I wish I could’ve found a way for both our plans to work out.”

“Me too.  I don’t like that you had to risk yourself to get me out.”

“I would’ve died before I let you get hurt-”

Charlotte sighs and wraps her arms around her.

“I don’t want that either.”

It’s both softly comforting and incredibly nerve-wracking to have her so close. The softness of her pressed to her, the weight of her cheek resting on her shoulder.  The slip of her hair that smells like her perfume and a little bit of the saltwater in the air here.

“You know it would be alright if you were a little upset with me. I wouldn’t hold it against you,” she tells Ange without letting go.

“I could say the same to you.”

“Mm.  No, I couldn’t be upset. I wouldn’t be here still if not for you. What are any of my ambitions if I’m not around for them?” she chuckles. “Even if it isn’t a little embarrassing that I needed you to come rescue me.  I wish I had the kind of skill you do.”

“You’ll get there in time.  I’ll teach you.  But only if you help me catch up on piano.”

She giggles and nods.

“I’d like that.”

She stays here, just shy of nuzzling Ange’s neck, reaching up to play with the short hair at the nape of her neck and she can’t help but freeze where she’s standing. The feeling makes her shiver like it always does and she wants to return it so badly. Wants to feel what it would be like to slip her hand in the silken weight of her long hair and kiss her.

But what if that’s not what she’s doing? What if she’s misinterpreted the way she touches her and looks at her?

Charlotte pauses and steps away, withdrawing her arms and the warmth of her departs.  Ange wants to pull her back to her, but can’t bring herself to do it.

“Does that bother you?” she asks, eyes wide and apprehensive.

“What?”

“What I was, um.  Your hair, I mean, ah-”

She’s stammering, going pink. She’s so poised nowadays, it’s a rarity to see her slip like this.

“N-no, I liked it. I’m sorry-”

“Is that what’s bothering you? Have I been too forward?”

They’re both fumbling through it, this half-conversation, this stuttering and nervousness that doesn’t seem to get anywhere.

“No, no that’s not it. Well, yes it is, it’s been bothering me but. Not because of you!” she waves frantically as Charlotte’s eyes go even wider, horrified that she’s done something to upset her.

She needs to tell her. Whether she hates her or not, she’s noticed something is off.  It wouldn’t be fair to keep tiptoeing in circles around it, pushing her farther away while Charlotte has no clue why.

She knows Charlotte loves her. She told her so, suspended in the middle of a freezing and foggy London night, gliding unnaturally above snowy rooftops, the slush turned grey with grime and soot.

But is it this kind of love like she hopes it is? The kind that makes her want to be close to her, touch her, memorize every line and plane of her face, kiss her warmly? The kind that makes it impossible to look anywhere else if she’s in the room, the kind that banishes every other thought and ambition besides her?

“I know you told me you loved me and-”

“I did. And I meant it,” Charlotte murmurs, resolute even as it’s clear she’s nervous.

“I know. I’m just afraid I may love you differently-”

“Oh. I see.”

Ange hears a deep tone of disappointment in her voice. She must already know.  What happens to them after this if it becomes clear they don’t love each other in the same way? Will they lose each other a little bit?

“And what way is that?” she continues, as if she had to muster the strength to ask it.

“I’m not sure how to explain it other than, ah-.  And i-it’s alright if you don’t feel the same w-way I-”

But Charlotte smiles softly.

“You’re so nervous, look at you.  Let’s postpone this for just a moment.  Just five minutes, I promise we’ll get to it. I don’t intend to take the courage you mustered for granted or quash it. Sit, here.”

She busies herself putting the kettle on and looks suddenly brighter, as if something Ange’s just said has bolstered her even though she said next to nothing.

“I can help-”

“I actually want to do it if that’s alright. When everyone does everything for you it gets so dull. Even pouring tea starts to seem interesting.”

She does it perfectly, of course, and true to what she told Ange she looks like she’s enjoying doing it.  She sits across from her.

“Do you mind if I tell you a little bit about while we were apart?  It’s just one story, nothing alarming.”

“Of course.

This is exactly the kind of thing she wants to talk with her about, the kinds of things it was painful for her to miss. What has she been doing since she saw her last? She wants to know everything. Every moment she missed.

“I’m sure your parents used to tell you over and over how important it’d be for you to get married, make a good political match, produce heirs, all that-”

“All the time. Even as a child,” she sighs.

“Well, obviously that didn’t change for me, although what I didn’t expect was how many of my classmates would plague me about it too. It wasn’t really on the top of my list of concerns, although learning how to look like a good wife was. Because they insisted on it. Anyway, the only real friend I had was Beatrice, but I had a lot of polite acquaintances I was expected to keep. You met a few of them.”

“They didn’t seem particularly close, no.”

“No, and those sorts of friendships aren’t supposed to be, really. The whole expectation is rather surface-level. But there are unspoken understandings that you talk about certain things as if you’re really friends. Marriage being the most popular one when you get older. “

“It sounds a bit…inane.”

“Oh it was, absolutely. But they loved it, it was a little like a game. Find ways to politely talk about the men you liked without being indecent about it. The giggling drove me mad.”

“What did you tell them when they asked you?”

“Oh, any number of things, all of them were made up.  Sometimes if I was peeved at one of them, I’d say I wanted to marry the man she liked just to watch her sputter.”

“I’m sure they thought it was the height of cruelty,” Ange laughs and Charlotte nods, giggling too.

“Absolutely they did.  I’m probably cruel for thinking it was funny,” she smiles but her laugh slows and she quiets a little, expression muted.  “But I’m not really telling you this story to talk about the way I used to gossip with friends.  It’s to tell you that, to be honest, the first time one of them asked me who I thought I wanted to marry, I couldn’t really think of anyone else but you.  Even then. Even now, actually.”

She looks delicately at her hands, folded primly in her lap, the silence punctuated by the lovely rustle of her skirt and the way Ange’s forgotten how to breathe for a moment, the heavy absence of her breath loud in the space between them.  

“Me?”

“Yes. I thought you might want to know that since it seemed just now like you might be nervous to tell me you liked me romantically.  Of course, if I’m wrong, this is about to be a bit embarrassing,” she giggles.

Ange finally breathes. It feels like she’s been holding that breath the entire time since she found her again and now.

“No, that’s actually exactly it.  You’ve felt like this the entire time?”

“Well, since I understood what love like that meant, yes.  Not as a small child, obviously, but by the time you found me, absolutely.”

“That…might’ve spared me some stress,” she finally starts to smile.

“I’m sorry, I thought you understood until the past few weeks.  You always seemed to reciprocate.”

“I was, I just wasn’t sure if I was interpreting anything correctly.  It took me a lot longer to understand.  At least a few days after seeing you again.”  
  
“I’m not sure that’s surprising.  I’ve grown up surrounded with these grand images of romance and marriage.  I think I was forced to understand earlier.  I’m sure your training as a spy, on the other hand, actively discouraged anything like it.”

“If a relationship isn’t of any use, use being intel, then yes.  I…wasn’t sure if women could feel like that. For each other, I mean.”

“I’m sure if you asked anyone they’d say no. But we do. So it’s not really a question of if we can anymore, is it? And whether we should isn’t far behind.”

“If you haven’t noticed, should isn’t a question spies ask often.  We don’t have much regard for should.”

Charlotte giggles.

“The impropriety! My friends at school will be horrified.”

“You plan on telling them?”

“I suppose not. Although it’s a shame I don’t get to watch them make a show of being affronted.”

They laugh with each other and it lulls into a comfortable silence. It’s like the ones they used to have in the castle, too tired to giggle anymore, lying next to each other, enjoying the other’s warmth and companionship.

“Can I kiss you?”

The question comes seemingly out of nowhere, cutting the silence. Or maybe it doesn’t come out of nowhere at all, Ange thinks. She was right after all. This has been what it’s all been building towards. Even if the thought doesn’t calm her nerves.

How is Charlotte not nervous? How can she ask that without stuttering? All Ange can do is nod and watch helplessly as she stands, crosses the few feet between them, and places a gentle hand on her cheek.

She can’t keep her eyes open any longer when Charlotte leans down to her a little where she’s sitting. She can’t stand up or move, and she can’t see anything but the curtain of her hair and the smooth skin of her face.

She can’t tell if it’s her nerves or the quiet hush of sand and water that puts this rush in her ears just before she kisses her. But when the soft give of her mouth meets hers, it clears. Every sound is amplified and it’s all her, the sound of her breath, quiet but quick, the sweetest, lightest suction when she pulls back and then the rustle when she leans forward to kiss her again, the little  _mmh!_  she gives her when Ange gets brave enough to trace the pink, soft edge of her lip with her tongue.

She isn’t sure how long she’s kissed her when she pulls away, grinning, Ange’s face cupped gently in both hands.

“I’ve wanted to do that for a long time now.”

“I’m sorry I delayed you. Can I make it up to you?”

“I’d like that,” she nods, a little flush the first hint that she’s as nervous as Ange.

“Just…how long do you think they’ll be gone? I don’t want to have to explain anything tonight.”

“We’ll probably have to explain eventually. But I’m also certain Dorothy left with the express intent to give us some time to do just this.”

“If you’re sure.”

“Would it make you feel better to sit outside? It might be nice, it’s still warm out.”

“Sounds lovely.”

It’s dark now, but Charlotte’s right that it’s balmy and warm outside, with a light breeze.

She’s been careful to set out a myriad of blankets and towels on the sand.

“I think we have enough, Princess.”

“ I think you were using Princess sarcastically that time.”

“I’m really not.”

“I’m just not one for sand, alright?”

“Maybe it’s best you weren’t the one who went through spy training.”

“I think I make an excellent spy, thank you.”

“Yes. Just one with an overzealous aversion to sand. And dirt. And-”

She kisses her mid-sentence and Ange smiles against her mouth.  

“You’re supposed to be making it up to me, remember?” she teases and Ange nods.

“Yes, you’re right, how rude of me.”

Charlotte giggles into her mouth.

The moon is bright enough that Ange can see how luminous she is, the way she smiles in lulls before they’re kissing each other so desperately, and the way she pulls Ange to lie down with her on the soft blankets, not pausing the kiss for an instant to lie with her on shifting sand.

Ange’s gasp when Charlotte takes her hand and places it tentatively just under the lacey hem of her night dress is stolen by the hush of the tide.

“C-can we do that?”

It’s something she wants, but also something she feels she shouldn’t have or isn’t allowed to have, even as she’s dreamed about it so many times, what it would feel like to do exactly this.

“Can we? Yes. Should we?  Depends who you ask. But what I’m more concerned with is do you want to? And if you say yes, and so do I, who is it that’s saying no?”

Ange smiles softly even though her nervousness remains. They’ve both spent a long time being told no.  Living with restrictions. And the only thing she’s wanted since she lost her was to see her again and be with her like this and that path was shockingly difficult, full of refusals and turned backs.

It’s no surprise she assumes this isn’t allowed. But here’s Charlotte, watching her sweetly, reminding her not to put so much trust in the very people and ideas that tore them apart in the first place.

“As if I’d answer anything but yes, Princess.”

Charlotte likes it when she calls her that, that much is obvious in the  way she ducks her head a little and goes pink. Ange slips her hand under the night dress by her collarbone like she wants and she inhales sharply, smiles and sighs happily, arched and wriggling a little.

Nothing about any of this, Casablanca, loving her, is what she thought.  Ange thinks it’s because all of this dreaming by herself has been for herself, really, and Charlotte’s too and they ring so hollow now. This is so much lovelier and also more terrifying in it’s undeniable reality and Ange realizes despite it all, she wouldn’t trade this for anything in the world.  These fleeting parts of life wouldn’t be so heartbreakingly beautiful if they weren’t hard-won.

The sand under them is at turns unforgiving and impossibly soft, and it changes direction quickly, its moods fleeting.  It’s difficult to keep going sometimes on such temperamental ground, but Ange would keep loving her until the ground swallowed her whole, keeps kissing her even when the grit digs into her knees even through the blanket, even when she almost loses her balance moving to poise herself above her.

Ange’s always thought they were easy enough to tell apart, never completely understood everyone else’s raving about how similar they look. She knows her hair has a grayer tint than Charlotte’s. Her eyes too. She actually has a harsher look in the face, despite her origins, her jaw and nose more pointed.  Charlotte has always looked a little softer.

But it would be hard to tell them apart in this half-moon light that illuminates and casts long shadows in turns, shifts as they move.  Not when she can barely tell herself where she ends and Charlotte begins. Has she ever been able to tell? Have either of them? She’s not sure. It seems as if they’ve always been hopelessly tangled up in one another like this, even when they weren’t together. Even when they weren’t sure they’d ever see each other again, haven’t the stuff of their lives, the entire point of any of it, always been one another?  Their expectations and the dreams dashed, the strange reality, all hopelessly connected to the other girl here?

She almost doesn’t want to be able to distinguish herself from Charlotte in this moment, wants to lose herself in the sweet slip of her fingers laced in her hair, lose herself in the taste of her, the warmth of her breath in her ear.  Charlotte seems to want to lose herself a little too, the way tangles herself in Ange the longer she kisses her, a hand in her hair, a fist holding the back of her nightdress like a lifeline, the way she crosses her legs around Ange’s hips to rest on her back when Ange reaches between her legs as if to steady herself. The way she moans, a long and pretty treble one, and the way it seems as if she wants Ange to feel it too, slips her hand out of Ange’s hair, hikes her nightdress up a little, slips her hand just there.

They fall into the easiest rhythm. But they’ve never had to try hard to do that. They’ve always seemed to implicitly understand one another.  They’ve always had an uncanny sense of what the other is going to do or what she needs or what she’s going to say.

They rock together, sigh into each other’s ears the way the tide does into soft, wet sand.

Ange doesn’t have to be told when Charlotte’s close. She knows in the way her legs tighten around her just the smallest bit, the way her breaths go frantic and she presses herself to her so frantically she wonders if she’s trying to melt into her.

Just the sound of it, the feeling of her clinging to her so hard it almost hurts, puts Ange close too, just following her. She’s always followed her, hasn’t she?

But she still has a knack for catching her off-guard once in awhile. She shudders with the prettiest whine and a kiss on her ear and a name.

_“Oh! Charlotte!”_

Funny how in ten years, she’s never missed that name, her name, until right now.

She can’t hold on any longer.  Not after that. Not when she’s looking at her with that soft, knowing expression.  Not when she’s the only person in the world who really knows her and she’s finally with her again and she loves her too.

She buries her face in the crook of her neck, where it smells the most unmistakably like her, whimpers and answers her.

_Ange._

When she hears it, she sighs and smiles as if relieved.

She collapses next to her and they nestle into one another, panting, nightdresses clinging a little with sweat and humid air.  The air is almost too thick to be cuddled into each other like this, makes their breath take longer to slow, but she can’t bring herself to care.  She almost likes the way it makes her heart pound in her ears and her lungs burn, undeniably and painfully alive with her next to her.

“Are you going to panic if I tell you I love you?” she turns to look at her, a tired smile on her cheeks.

“Haven’t you already told me?”

“Yes. I just thought it bore repeating.  Now that you know how I meant it the first time.”

“Is now an appropriate time to tell you I love you too?”

She nods and kisses her.

“As appropriate as it gets, yes.”

They rest for a while, just listening to alternating rush and quiet of waves.

“You know, I have to commend you, the blankets were a good idea after all,” Ange teases.  Neither of them have bothered to pull their night dresses back down yet and she’s glad not to be directly on sand.

“See? You laughed at me, but can you imagine the sand if I hadn’t put it down?”

They giggle together and is it normal to feel a little giddy after? To want to lie here and talk to her and laugh with her forever?

“Sorry I can’t…stop laughing,” she tells her, a little embarrassed.  “I feel like an idiot, is this normal?”

“Yes and it’s called afterglow.”

“There’s a name for it?”

“There is. And you seem to have it particularly badly. You should probably stand up slowly when we get up.”

“Wait, how do you know all this?”

“A few of my acquaintances married early. They spared as few details as possible. Thank goodness common decency kept them from being too graphic.”

The giggle that follows is cut short by the sound of a door swinging open up at the house.

“Princess?”

Beatrice has dashed straight through the house to the porch. Ange can see her frantically scanning the beach for them.

“Damn her-”

They scramble to make sure their night dresses are in place, pulling them back down, righting the necklines.

“Oh come now, she doesn’t mean anything  by it.”

“Hmph.”

“Don’t tell me you’re jealous.”

Ange says nothing and Charlotte collapses in a giggle fit.

“You are! You’re jealous of her! Even after all that,” she gestures between them.

“I’m sorry. You just seemed very close to her is all. I wondered for a moment if you two were…involved.”

“Oh, well, no it never got that far, not for lack of trying. Beatrice is shy as anything, bless her.”

“W-wait, what? Y-you actually-”

“I like Beatrice. She was one of the only genuine people I knew at that place.  She was another outcast, someone who felt she shouldn’t be there just as keenly as I did. I think I might’ve gone mad before long without her. But obviously if it bothers you, I won’t attempt to let things progress if the opportunity ever presents itself.”

“I-I don’t know, I-”

“You don’t necessarily have to know right now, it’s really moot unless Beatrice does anything. Don’t worry so much about it for now. I love Beatrice. But you? I’m not sure if there are words enough in this world for how I feel about you. It’s unfortunate that love is the best I have.”

Ange deflates a little.

“Alright.  But for now you should at least go talk to her.  She’s very attached to you. I may be jealous but I’m not cruel.”

“Ah, yes, but you’re coming with me for that conversation.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m attached to you,” she tells her and kisses her once more, still hidden enough from the house for no one to see.  She was right to tell her to stand slowly. Her legs feel like they’re thrumming and not entirely solid underneath her.

They turn to the house, warm light and a happy jumble of activity visible through the open door. Beatrice bounces in place, impatient now that she’s spotted her princess.

Dorothy leans in the doorway, swaying a bit.  She’s found more alcohol at the fair. She laughs when she notices where they’re coming from, and turns to go back inside. Ange has no doubt she knows exactly what’s just happened and plans on teasing her mercilessly about it with poorly disguised euphemisms for days.

Chise seems a little puzzled as to why they chose to sit in the dark on the beach when there’s a perfectly good and well-lit house just a few minutes up the beach, but as with everything, she decides that questioning it is more trouble than it’s worth. Resuming sharpening her knife is more interesting.

Charlotte drags her eagerly by the hand, so heartbreakingly content with this little house and their friends and with Ange’s hand laced with hers. It hardly seems real. Ange smiles and follows her up the beach and things are calmly right for this one moment on the porch of a little house, in between the warm, golden light of kerosene lamps and the intermittent silver of the moon.


End file.
